


Play It Again

by Azzandra



Series: Philipa "Pippa" Trevelyan [5]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Immortality, Modern Thedas, Trespasser Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-09
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-19 23:49:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4765592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of the Herald of Andraste was re-told in many ways over the centuries. Inevitably, at one point it would also be as an animated musical.</p><p>As it happens, there are still some people around to cringe at the historical inaccuracies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It's Actually a Family Movie

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this before Trespasser was announced and thought it was going to be jossed, but surprisingly, with just a few tweaks, it still worked! So here it is.
> 
> Inspired by a particular [kink meme prompt](http://dragonage-kink.livejournal.com/14614.html?thread=57594134#t57594134): _DA:I Events Retold in Future as a Disney Musical_ , though it follows the prompt rather loosely.

"...and mind you, I'm sure there wasn't that much singing to begin with, but I'm not even taking issue with that. A nice jaunty tune would have probably lightened things up quite a bit, but this movie is shaping up to be even less historically accurate than the Black Fox one they made two years ago--the one where he's  _a literal fox_."

Scattered laughter could be heard through the room. 

A hand rose up, and the student started talking before being called on. Human, of course; they were always the first the mouth off in class, more than the elves or the vashoth or dwarves. 

"But, Professor, what does a cartoon have to do with anything?" the student asked, frowning.

"Animated musical," the professor corrected.

"It's for kids," the student insisted. "It doesn't have to be historically accurate."

"Doesn't have to be a mess, either," the professor muttered, and took out a pack of cigarettes. "Anybody mind the smoke?"

There were a handful of muttered protests around the room. The professor hummed and lit a cigarette anyway, then in a flash of light cast a barrier. The smoke curled up from the cigarette and folded back in on itself when it reached the bubble of the barrier, unable to escape.

"Now," the professor continued, leaning back and extending legs to rest on a nearby wooden chair. This exposed a pair of neon orange soles to the class. "The reason I mind is obvious."

"Because you were really there?" the same student hazarded a guess.

The professor had a brief fit of laughter.

"No, that's not the reason."

"But," another student chimed in, an awkward vashoth bent over nearly double to fit in the too-small seat, "you  _were_  the Herald of Andraste, weren't you? The original Inquisitor?"

Professor Pippa Trevelyan shrugged, and the cigarette hung from her lip rakishly as she grinned.

"Sure, that's the general consensus in the historical community," she said.

"But don't you know?" the first student asked. "How can you not know, if you were alive back then?"

"Kiddos, I don't remember that far back. It was a long time ago, yeah?" Professor Trevelyan replied. "You were alive when you were two months old, you remember anything from that age?" This question was met with silence. Professor Trevelyan flicked her cigarette over an ashtray on her desk. "Well, there you go."

"So what's the reason you do mind the movie, then?"

"Because," she groused, "you lot watch this crap as kids, and by the time you get to college you have all sorts of misconceptions that I need to hammer out of your soft impressionable brains before I can teach you proper historical inquiry. Makes more work for me. I don't like it."

The smoke within her barrier curled around her like a cloud, but with the slightest twitch of magic, she made it disappear.

"Now," she said, leaning back into her seat, "I believe I was teaching a history class here, not running a media studies seminar."

 

* * *

 

Professor Trevelyan dismissed the barrier. There was no smoke, but the slight aroma of burnt elfroot wafted through the air as the last of the students filed out of the lecture hall. She shuffled her notes, a mess of scrawls and citations and bad puns scribbled on the margins, and then picked up her phone to fiddle with while she waited for the last of the stragglers to leave.

The last set of footsteps, however, went not to the door, but stopped just before her desk.

She looked up, trying not to appear too grumpy. There were always a handful students who considered her a curiosity at the beginning of the semester: one of the few known immortals still knocking about Thedas in this modern age, the Herald of Andraste, the Inquisitor; they eyed her prosthetic arm in awe, as if they might see the remainder of the Mark on it. 

Being treated like a novelty, ironically enough,  _got old_.

This was not the bright-faced teenager she expected, however, but a middle-aged, bald-headed elf.

"My office hours are between four and six, twice a week," Pippa said. "Knock firmly, I might be taking a nap."

A smile flickered across his face; he took out a flier out of his notebook and placed it on her desk.

"Thank you, Professor," he said, "but I was actually curious whether you were aware of this event?"

Pippa glanced at the paper, advertising a museum exhibit touting Inquisition-era artifacts. She was not surprised, people often asked her about things such as this, even though she explicitly told people she didn't recall anything from that period.

"I don't usually go these things," she said. "I always get the feeling like if I showed up, they'd put me on display as well."

He inclined his head politely.

"I understand the feeling," he said. "Thank you for your time, Professor."

With that, he left.

Pippa turned the conversation over in her head, ruminating on the words. What an odd fellow, she thought. But then, she was a fair bit of an oddity herself.

She'd have to keep an eye on that one, though. She got a strange feeling about him.

 

* * *

 

Even novelty couldn't guarantee attendance, and without it being a requirement, by the eighth week, factoring in drop-outs as well, the lecture hall was barely a quarter full.

By that point they'd reached the Inquisition era in the curriculum, a part that Pippa always dreaded teaching. There was always a bump in attendance around that time, the nosy and the curious unable to miss a chance to hear her talk about the Inquisition, but she took advantage of it to shake up her lesson plan.

"Alright, then," she said, gesturing towards the screen with her projector remote, "like I said. The movie is one-hundred and seven minutes long. Giving it the most generous benefit of a doubt, let's say it has about one historical inaccuracy every two minutes. The goal is to get as many inaccuracies as you can. Email me the list, with citations justifying your choices, for extra credit. If you've done your reading up until now, you should be getting most of them. Anyone who gets over fifty gets an automatic full score on the final and can elect to sit it out."

There was a murmur of excitement throughout the room.

"Professor, what if all of us get over fifty?" someone asked.

Pippa clutched the remote to her chest and sighed. 

"Then I will have to live my life without that crick I get in my neck from correcting your exams," she said.

A wave of laughter washed over the room, more relief than actual humor, Pippa suspected. It was all just as well. They would experience their first finals week soon enough, and Pippa always felt bad about crushing the bright-eyed freshmen right out of the gate.

She started the video, and a little animated nug began carving the studio logo up on the screen. Since this was a bootleg copy, filmed in some poorly-managed movie theater in Markham, if she had to guess, the quality was not perfect. But some mage with too much time on their hands had gone through the effort of altering the sound to be crisper, free of fuzz, and the image to be sharper. It was a passable viewing experience.

Pippa walked up to the first unoccupied row, where she would be neatly behind the entire room. The first song started, a dark, choral melody as the Templars and mages marched towards the Temple of Sacred Ashes, singing of their mistrust for one another. 

And of course, because the subject matter required a certain level of respect, she decided to set the tone herself.

"I'm sure that's going to end well," she remarked, and after a moment of shock the students tittered.

It would be, it had to be said, an entertaining one hundred and seven minutes. Some students were dutifully scribbling down notes, but most were enjoying the show. Five minutes in, they grew brave enough to even make snarky comments themselves. 

In an opening sequence that even Pippa had to admit was the best animation she'd seen that year, the Conclave went up in flames, and her animated counterpart made her debut: looking far younger than Pippa's actual age at the time, when presumably her aging had ceased. The filmmakers did not apparently believe that a full adult woman could pull off the doe-eyed look required by the art style.

The characters representing Cassandra and Leliana were humorless shadows of their former selves. By the looks of it, Cassandra had in fact been turned into something of a villain, emanating nothing but malice towards the young, adolescent-looking Herald. It was a thread continuing on through the movie, until the very end when Cassandra apparently became Divine just out of spite, driven to ambition by her hatred towards the Herald. The filmmakers apparently decided that the issues which drove a wedge between the Inquisitor and the Divine almost a decade later were not political and circumstantial so much as petty jealousy. 

Other characters fared no better. Iron Bull a grim, tautly stoic Qunari caricature, Blackwall a shifty-eyed rogue, transparently evil, Sera a clownish buffoon.

Though perhaps the strangest was the addition of a wolf sidekick. Hardly surprising, since animal companions were a mainstay of these kinds of films, but this one had been rather insensitively named Fen'Harel by a random elf character who would never appear again after that scene. In a year when elf representation in media was a hot-button issue, this felt like either a clumsy attempt at support by the filmmakers, or an appeal to the more chauvinist elements of the human and city elf audience. Likely the marketing department would spin it both ways, and escape reprimand by playing the different segments of the audience against each other. Either way, the fact that they turned an important (if contentious) elven historical figure into a human religious figure's mascot was the more socially tone-deaf move Pippa seen in decades, and she couldn't wait to see what protests the EERA would lodge.

Lost in the assessment of the political clusterfuck she was witnessing, she broke from her reverie around the time the new Herald and Commander Cullen began pining for each other in song, bemoaning the fact that being a mage and a Templar made their romance so star-crossed.

Despite her lapsing memory, the thought about a mage and a Templar in any kind of relationship made vague unease skitter under her skin like an itch. But such relationships had become a mainstay of popular romance, even more so in recent years, and so Pippa could not be surprised at the inclusion of such an element. It didn't mean she had to like it.

"Well, I'm out," she said, and walked out of the lecture hall. The students smothered laughs as the door closed behind her. She went and had a smoke on the corridor, where she could only hear the melody and short snatches of words. 

She finished her cigarette long after the song ended, and walked back in just in time to see the attack by Corypheus on Haven. She regretted it, when she realized she had to now sit through the heroine giving a long, cringe-worthy speech to Corypheus about faith and goodness and love. 

Pippa couldn't believe this movie was making her wish Corypheus would just squish her.

The following sequence, at least, was more engaging. The students were quietly tense and invested as the heroine trudged blindly through the snow, injured and fatigued. She was still, somehow, speaking out loud to herself, reminding herself of Cullen waiting for her somewhere, and Pippa was about to leave the room again when a wolf howl broke through the snowstorm. It appeared the wolf named for Fen'Harel was the one who came to her rescue. At least, mercifully, it hadn't been Cullen, inexplicably tracking her through the power of love or some such silliness.

There was more singing after that, the movie's big choral musical number as Skyhold was found. There was something about the melody, or perhaps the context, that itched at Pippa's memories uncomfortably. A camp in the darkness flitted across her mind, and then before she could grasp it fully, it was gone.

She rose and walked through the aisle instead of dwelling on it. It was by accident that her eyes fell on an open notebook, belonging to a student on the aisle seat. It was a pen sketch of the wolf Fen'Harel from the movie, though by the way he was drawn, it seemed the artist was talented but inexperienced with more cartoonish styles. This Fen'Harel looked sharper, more lupine than his on-screen counterpart.

Pippa couldn't resist tapping the page.

"That's my favorite character, too," she said, and only then turned to notice the student.

It was the middle-aged elf who sat in on her classes sometimes. He was not a student, as far as she could figure; or if he was, he wasn't one of hers in particular. He dressed frumpily, in comfortable sweaters and well-worn slacks, and he never took notes, though he always had a notebook with him. Perhaps the notebook was to indicate he was not a professor. He'd certainly pass for one otherwise.

He turned a soft smile on her, and Pippa felt as if maybe she'd revealed something silly about herself just then. She raised an eyebrow at him instead, making no effort to hide her puzzlement at his presence.

But he said nothing, and she moved on.

On screen, the music reached a victorious pitch as Skyhold came into view. It looked exactly like in the etchings, and the dizzying view of it among mountain peaks made memories itch and scratch at the surface of her mind. She ignored them.


	2. Between Friends

 

Pippa was grumpy.

The Inquisition part of the curriculum always made her feel that way, even though it was probably on the strength of her first-hand experiences with that exact point in time that she was hired.

She needed someone who understood, and so sat down with her phone, going through her contacts, trying to figure out who she wanted to talk to.

Her finger hovered over Cole's name. She tried to recall if he was in the city at this time. He'd probably come even if he wasn't, but she didn't want him to know she was unhappy yet. She'd speak to him eventually, but for now... no.

No, she decided, and scrolled to the top of her contact list.

She would take a walk. This required she actually change out of her pajamas and strap on her arm, but sacrifices were sometimes necessary. She half-heartedly pulled on a hoodie and a pair of well-worn pants, and donned her usual white leather coat.

Val Royeaux was every bit as colorful in winter as any other time of year. There was only sparse snow now, gray and melting in shadowed corners, but the city itself was a tapestry of graffiti and posters and impromptu art installations by rogue art collectives. The sky-blue of the city had been encroached over the decades by an increasingly chaotic mix of colors, and the delicate chamber music which once swept over the streets was replaced by thumping bass, like the city's heartbeat could be felt through the soles of the feet.

It was easy to see where the stories of wild underground raves came from, of no-holds-barred parties in catacombs where strung-out lyrium addicts danced to spirit-music until they forgot which side of the Veil they inhabited. Pippa didn't necessarily believe the stories, but then again, she had seen weirded. Probably.

With just a few glances to her phone's map application, she managed to find the correct address. Though she'd been here only once before, she immediately recognized the stately building as it came into view. The glass wall of the entrance was dominated by a wrought iron tree, bare metal branches spread out in deference to Mythal.

Pippa dodged down a side street and took the back way in. There was a discreet rear entrance on that side of the building, stairs leading to the second level and into a part of the building not meant for business.

Pippa squinted through the glass door. The greenhouse looked different since the last time she'd been here. The delicate mosaics and small ornamental statuettes were nearly overrun by greenery. It took Pippa a minute to notice that there was someone inside, moving just behind the leafy canopy.

She tapped on the glass door, not hard, but it resounded throughout the greenhouse.

Pippa saw the movement change; a slow unbending, as someone rose from a crouch, unfolding limbs, up and up.

She was always a bit stunned by how tall Abelas was. Even removed from the temple he once guarded, and garbed in simple, grimy overalls, he was still a sight. She was used to the elves getting taller and taller these past generations, but Abelas still managed to  _tower_. 

He stepped into view, frowning in consternation as he took in the sight of her, and he walked towards the door.

"Has something happened?" he asked through the glass.

Pippa shrugged.

"I don't know, has it?" she returned.

She could see the small sigh he gave--it was in the way his shoulders drooped just slightly--and then he reached over to open the door. She swanned in past him, and into the smothering heat of the greenhouse.

"You're quite the gardener," she remarked, stopping before a beautiful purple flower, fat and waxy on the top of its stalk.

"I am not," he said, closing the door behind her. "I am only a caretaker. Why are you here?"

Pippa regretted she hadn't brought something to drink. There was a nice cafe serving hot beverages to go just across the street, or at the very least, she could have brought a flask of something strong. As it was, she remained on the spot staring at the purple flower.

"It's just a visit," she said. "There's no reason behind it."

Abelas sighed again, and walked out of view. Pippa remained in place, uncertain, until he returned with a glass bottle. She did not think it was water inside.

"I have only the one glass," he began.

"It's been a swig straight from the bottle kind of day for me," Pippa replied.

He nodded. "Fair enough."

 

* * *

 

The thing was, once you became immortal, it was only a matter of time until you ran into people with the same predicament. It was not necessarily the kind of thing that strong friendships were built on, but it did induce a sense of camaraderie. Of the remaining Elvhen in Thedas, Abelas was the one whose relationship with Pippa remained the most constant: they had been cordial but not particularly close acquaintances for a few hundred years now.

"Don't you have anyone else to talk to?" Abelas asked.

The bottle of abyssal peach brandy passed between them a few times before he spoke. It was the kind of drink one sipped, no matter how bad the day they were having.

"I'm in between friends at the moment," Pippa replied, though it was not strictly true. 

She had Cole. She had a few other people she could talk to. But what she needed at the moment was a relative stranger who understood the vagaries of history, not a friend to pour her heart out to.

"Have you heard, they made a new movie about me," she said. "It's called  _Herald_."

"The cartoon? Yes, I've heard."

"Animated musical."

Abelas's lip twitched.

"I take it that is why you're so possessive of my alcohol at the moment," he said.

Pippa looked down to see she was clutching the bottle to her chest. She regretfully surrendered it.

"It has very high quality animation," she said, morose. "And the songs are very good."

"What could have possessed you to watch that atrocity?" Abelas took a swig of brandy.

"Oh, so you know it."

"The advertisements for it have been unrelenting," Abelas groused.

"And the EERA has opinions on it as well, I presume." Not a hard conclusion to draw. The Elven Equal Rights Association concerned itself with anything that involved--or abusively did not involve--elves. Since Abelas spent so much time in this building, he was probably kept in the loop through office gossip alone, even if political activism wasn't exactly his thing.

"As I understand it, the subject has been preoccupying the... blogosphere. And many members of the EERA, yes."

The bottle passed hands a few times.

"Well," Pippa said, "at least you'll be relieved to know you and your sentinels don't appear in this movie."

Abelas looked vexed, and it was obvious that he hadn't considered the possibility until that very moment. He cycled rapidly from annoyance, to mortification, and ultimately, indeed, to relief.

"The horrors you make me contemplate," he muttered, shaking his head.

Pippa laughed.

 

* * *

 

She left the movie playing in the background on her laptop as she went over the students' assignment. She had more documents open than was probably necessary, most having to do with citations and historical sources. She could probably write a book on the evolution over time of the ridiculous myths this movie treated as historical fact. Eventually, she would inevitably have to, because they were getting out of control.

She also had a myriad of other tabs open--blog posts and articles about the movie. Maybe instead of a book, she'd write a blog post herself.

She rubbed her eyes and checked the clock, and was dismayed to discover how late it was. The movie was at its final scene, and she paused it right on the ominous image of Fen'Harel growing another two sets of eyes, glowing red as he overlooked Skyhold. Now, in his moment of betrayal, as he left the Inquisition to plot against it, he finally turned from wolf to elf, no longer the friendly animal companion he'd been until then.

Not that it wasn't what the actual Fen'Harel had done, but the heavy handed use of the treacherous elf trope in this scene was something every single critical blog post had pointed out--and even reviews which were unabashed gushing even pointed it out, albeit only to minimize its severity.

Pippa stretched out on the sofa, meaning only to rest her eyes for a moment, but in the even white glow of her laptop, she fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

She was woken by a knock on the door, and winced. 

"Cole, if that's you, just come in," she called out. 

She heard the door open and close again; she resolved that if it was a burglar or some manner of axe murderer, she wouldn't even bother fighting back because she had a pounding headache and a sore shoulder from sleeping on the sofa, and death seemed like the better option at the moment.

Sure enough, Cole's face appeared just above her, peering down at her from over the sofa's backrest.

"You wouldn't mind if the images were just wrong, but they lie in bad ways," he said, then: "Good morning."

He dropped a steaming paper bag onto Pippa's belly, and the smell of delicious baked goods filled the air. Pippa rose up and opened the bag. Inside was her favorite, a nutty swirl just like the Antivans made them. She tore into it.

Cole hopped over the backrest and settled next to Pippa. He had a new hat, with such ample brims Pippa thought he might have to tilt his head just to fit through doorways. She loved it.

"You weren't in the movie," Pippa said. 

"You would be less happy if I had been, anyway," he said.

"That's probably true." Pippa sighed.

She had only a wedge left of her pastry, and she bit onto it, holding it in her mouth as she reached to her laptop and refreshed her email inbox. If more students had sent in work, she wanted to see it now.

And then she made a confused chortling sound through a mouthful of pastry as she looked at the deluge of emails she'd received.  _Three pages worth_? The subject lines explained very little; the ones that weren't requests for interviews or strange questions were caps-locked insults. 

She scanned the page for a familiar name, and happened upon Velara Lavellan's, an EERA representative she'd spoken to before. She opened this one and was relieved that, in scrupulous detail, Velara explained exactly what Pippa had done to warrant the deluge she'd woken up to.

_'...reports that you have showed the Hasken Productions film_ Herald _in class to students as part of the curriculum...'_

Pippa flung the remains of her pastry on the coffee table and pinched the bridge of her nose. Some smug self-satisfied little shit wrote an article defending the movie and said that she-- _the actual Herald herself!_ \--had shown it in class, completely failing to mention the context of why she did so.

"Their lies always curdle, sour in the back of your throat as you taste them," Cole said, sadly regarding the remains of the nutty swirl. "I'm sorry, I thought something sweet would help."

"It did. Thank you, Cole, it's fine," she gritted out.

It was not fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The EERA headquarters' appearance was inspired by [Russia's Ministry of Agriculture.](http://azzandra.tumblr.com/post/121513541736/boredpanda-giant-iron-tree-built-in-russias)


	3. Reminiscing

The temptation to send an email out telling students class was canceled on account of media fuckery was overwhelming, but alas, Pippa was certain she would have gotten reprimanded by the University for using the word 'fuckery' in a class email. For Orlesians, they could be irritatingly uptight.

So she took a different route than her usual one to the University, and she walked into the lecture hall as if absolutely nothing had happened. The murmur of conversation didn't die down immediately, so she sat down and propped her feet up, waiting for the class to settle. She'd bought herself a spicy cocoa on the way to University, and it was now cool enough to drink, so she took a sip as she waited, unconcerned.

The students pretended not to stare. Their eyes flicked nervously to her as they murmured between themselves; likely even the ones who weren't regular followers of media blogs were now in the loop regarding what had happened, and outraged on her behalf.

Then one of the students, a young elven woman with a kicked puppy expression that could have stopped trains, actually got worked up enough to address Pippa.

"Professor, they completely misrepresented you!" she said, stricken.

The lecture hall grew completely quiet, and all eyes in the room turned to Pippa. She didn't think they'd ever been so attentive in class as they were now, waiting for her response.

"Yes, I noticed," was Pippa's sedate reply.

"There was this guy who interviewed us on the way in today," another student interjected, this one human and clad in more leather and spikes than should be strictly tasteful. A few more voices rose up, from other students who'd been similarly waylaid.

"What did he record you with?" Pippa asked.

"A... camera phone," the student replied, puzzled at the question.

Pippa hummed in acknowledgment and took another sip of her cocoa. Camera phone meant blog or news site. Oh good. No traditional media had sunk its teeth into the story yet.

"We set him straight," the student assured her. 

"Thank you for the attempt," Pippa said.

She'd spent the entire morning herself sending emails to people who were inclined to listen to her side of the story, not just the EERA, but a few colleagues who'd caught wind of the news and knew her well enough to realize how bizarre it sounded of her. But ultimately, the damage was already done, and she told everyone as much.

The students seemed crestfallen, seeing it as some kind of defeat.

"It's sweet of you, but you don't have to worry about me," she said, "I have centuries to ride this out." 

And just then, her eyes fell on the bald elven student who was not in fact her student, and she had to ask herself where the blogger in question had gotten their information.

 

* * *

 

She was not being unreasonable, she didn't think. She wasn't profiling the man, or anything, despite the past few centuries being replete with fictional villains who looked exactly like him. But she didn't know who he was or what he wanted from her, and there was a nagging part of her that suspected she was always meant to find out who he was sooner or later.

Pippa didn't expect him to still be around by the time her classes let out, but surprisingly, she managed to corner him at a coffee vending machine on the University's ground floor. He was watching the whirring contraption, and so did not notice Pippa until she'd already sidled up next to him and taken note of his order.

"The coffee in these things is passable, but the cocoa is like your taste buds being Blighted," she informed him.

He turned very slowly towards her. There was only the briefest flicker of surprise before his lips quirked in a soft smile.

"I realize," he replied. "However, I do not drink coffee, and on campus, my options are limited."

"Oh, and off campus?" Pippa asked.

He retrieved his plastic cup, the cocoa inside a murky mud brown instead of the even dark shades proper cocoa was supposed to have. He stirred it with the plastic stick the vending machine helpfully dispensed, but no amount of stirring in the world could fix the atrocity in the cup.

"Perhaps I could show you," he offered, and took a sip of the offending beverage.

Pippa scrunched her nose at the smell of the cheap cocoa. It took her a moment to process his words, because she'd sooner expected him to weasel out of a conversation than ask her on a... date?

"I don't even know your name," she blurted out.

He smiled at her, tilted his head in acknowledgment. 

"You may call me Falon," he said.

"That's not your name," she said.

"Regardless, it is what you may call me."

Pippa squinted at him, making no effort to hide her suspicion. But he was completely unflappable while waiting for her answer, and she was curious.

"Alright, sure," she said eventually. "Let's see what you've got."

 

* * *

 

Pippa frowned as they walked into the coffee shop.

"You saw the Amero's logo on my cup this morning," she accused.

"I did not say I would be taking you somewhere new to you," Falon told her. "If it will make you feel better about my deception, I _am_ buying."

"I don't need you liar money," Pippa informed him in a deadpan, but still followed him up to the counter.

"Ah, but luckily, here at Amero's we accept all currencies," the barrista chimed in, obviously having overheard her. He was a charmingly Antivan young man, and he beamed as he looked back and forth between them. "Your usuals?"

Pippa glanced sidelong at Falon. She was a regular at Amero's, but she wasn't surprised that she'd somehow missed the fact that Falon was one as well. When visiting a coffee shop this close to campus, she tended to block out and ignore everyone around her so she wouldn't have to interact with students out of class.

"Perhaps we can be more adventurous today," Falon suggested, and Pippa shrugged. "Two of your specials, if you would be so kind."

The specials, in this case, turned out to be some utterly froofy drinks, sweetened and creamed to architectural perfection. Pippa was unsure how to even approach the intimidating stack of whipped cream beneath which her drink was supposedly hiding. Falon merely stabbed it with a straw, unconcerned; that was certainly one way to do it.

There weren't many customers in Amero's at this time of day, but they'd taken a booth out of sight anyway, out of some similar instinct for privacy.

"So what are you doing in my class anyway?" Pippa asked, digging into the whipped cream with a spoon.

"I am auditing, of course," Falon replied. "You _should_ be aware of this fact, you did sign the paperwork."

Pippa thought back to the beginning of the school year, trying to recall. There was always at least a few people auditing each year, usually some curious soul wanting to see a figure out of history with their own eyes, but at this point she signed the papers by reflex, not even bothering to read the names.

"But _why_?" she asked.

"To learn, Professor," he replied. "Is the pursuit of knowledge not a worthy enough goal?"

"Depends to what ends, I suppose."

He chuckled, the sound low and rich, and unexpectedly ending in a snort.

"Well said."

Pippa made a non-committal sound and took a sip of her drink. It was ice cold, a fact she had not noticed at first because she'd carried the cup with her prosthetic hand, as she did any drink she reasonably expected to be hot. Now that she swirled the straw around, she heard the clink of ice. She wondered who was to blame for this, the Orlesians or the Antivans?

"You dislike it," Falon remarked.

"The drinkable component of this drink seems rather downplayed, is what I'm noticing," Pippa replied.

"I understand it is generally thought to be a very refreshing beverage regardless."

"Lovely. I'll have some water afterwards."

Still, Pippa was making her way through the whipped cream quite fast. It was sprinkled with something sweet and slightly nutty that she couldn't quite identify.

"So whose friend are you, exactly?" she asked.

"I could be yours, if you'll allow."

Pippa snorted.

"I am not joking."

"My incredulity was also one hundred percent serious," Pippa replied. "I'm sorry, but you do realize how villainous that sounded."

He blinked, taken aback.

"Did it? Ah, my apologies." He shrugged, embarrassed. "I seem to have lost my touch with people lately."

"It's alright. Mine comes and goes as well," Pippa admitted. They lapsed into silence for a few seconds before she spoke again. "So what did you think of the movie?"

He quirked a smile.

"Probably less of it than you did," he said. "But then, you do not have memories of that time, you said."

Pippa sipped her drink to hide the dizzying feeling of deja vu. She'd been here before; having this conversation. She recognized it now, the nagging sense of familiarity in Falon's manner.

"No," she said, eyes narrowed, "so why don't you tell me about it, since you do?"

He seemed surprised, and then unsure.

"You figured it out," he said slowly.

"You're hardly the first immortal who's ever tried dropping hints at me," she replied. "Not even the first to do it in a coffee shop, really."

He pressed his lips together, suddenly uncertain.

"Well?" Pippa prompted.

"Yes, I am-- that is, I was there for the events in question. At the time." He paused for a moment. "Do you... not know who I am?"

"No," Pippa admitted, now her turn to be surprised. "Interesting that you think I should, though." She tapped her temple. "I wasn't joking about not remembering much from back then. Feeble human brain, and all that."

"You actually said you didn't remember _anything_ from back then," he said.

"Well..." She shrugged. "Nothing important." Or if something important, then not coherent enough to be recognized as such, but she didn't mention that part. 

"Then, I..." He huffed, exasperated. "I am sorry, this conversation is not going the way I anticipated."

"I do enjoy a spectacular derailment once in a while," Pippa laughed. "But why don't we return to the last cogent point before we jumped off the tracks?"

He thought for a moment, and nodded.

"Ah, what I thought about the movie."

"I actually meant why you thought I'd know you, but we can discuss that, too."

"Very well." He pushed his drink aside, and leaned forward, fingers steepled over the table top. "I believe historical inaccuracy is not the film's main failing."

"It isn't?" 

"No. The inaccuracy is a side effect of its purpose: to reinterpret events in the past through the lens of the prejudices of the present, in order to validate the cultural hegemony of the modern era."

"Oh, that's a good one, you should put that in an essay," Pippa said, leaning back. "You must be fantastic at inflating word counts."

"I am serious," he said flatly.

"I could tell by your use of the word 'hegemony'," she replied. "So I take it you didn't like the movie."

He leaned back.

"I thought the first song was technically accomplished," he said.

She burst into laughter, because she agreed.

 

* * *

 

When it became time to leave, he held up her coat for her.

"I can dress myself, even without this," she said, waving her prosthetic arm. The lacquered wooden fingers flexed, not quite as naturally as flesh and blood ones, but as smoothly as enchantment permitted. 

"It is only politeness," he said, "even towards someone with the full inventory of limbs."

She grinned at that--people were sometimes hesitant to joke about it, though at this point she couldn't even remember a time when her left arm _wasn't_ detachable.

"I'm going to figure you out, Falon," she threatened good-naturedly.

"I expect no less," he said, and sounded more solemn than she expected.

 

* * *

 

She had a dream that night, of being somewhere dark and dank. There were footsteps shuffling against a stone floor.

"I always forget Fen'Harel," someone was saying.

"Most people do," Falon's voice replied, though she couldn't see him there.


	4. Crossroads

The week, despite Pippa's misgivings, would plod on. The Internet remained stubbornly misinformed and angry at her, the only ones coming to her defense being the kind of people she was disgusted to be associated with. She received a flurry of hate mail and assorted weirdness on her school-provided email, as it was public and easily found on the University site, and she had to make a separate email address for the sole purpose of receiving student mail. Pippa was not precisely having the time of her life.

Being in the press, even in niche arguments, was particularly unpleasant for how it made people on campus look at her and whisper behind her back. She hadn't gotten this much attention since Orlé included her in a fashion feature, declaring her "Most Well-Dressed This Side of the Breach!". Pippa was rather confused on what they had meant--perhaps they were under the impression that she had been _born_ in the Breach? In which case there was a history class the writers and editors of that magazine ought to sit in on--but she supposed after a few hundred years of dressing herself, she'd gotten the hang of it better than most. She was fairly sure she was the one responsible for bringing thin, long belts back in fashion, though she didn't appreciate the fact that most of the shots in that magazine were candids apparently taken of her on the street without her noticing.

No, this was far worse, for the laughing and ribbing and utterly irritating looks of superiority from people both gullible enough to believe she was the vain idiot who'd shown a film about herself in class uncritically, and smug enough to think themselves superior for it because they were sure they would be too upstanding to do the same.

The long walk across campus, once a time Pippa enjoyed because it allowed her to clear her mind, now turned into an insufferable trudge. She took out her phone and irritably scrolled through her contacts, and though she hadn't planned on it, she made a phone call.

She barely heard the dialing tone before the call was answered, to her surprise.

"What a handsome surprise! 'Tis quite the honor to be remembered by the blessed Herald of Andraste."

"You're sounding smarmier than usual," Pippa replied. "Have I done something to offend you?"

"You? Of course not! What could you, perfect creature, ever do to offend anyone?"

A lot, apparently. But Pippa had an inkling what it might be.

"I'm sorry they made you a ditz, Morrigan."

"I haven't the slightest what you mean."

"They gave your character a pink dress and had you sing a song about how much you love shoes with little bows on them. And it was hands down the worst song in the movie, even without the character assassination."

"Not at all," Morrigan said, voice dripping with sweetness like poison, "if anything I should apologize to _you_ for the fact that you had to sit through that twisted mockery of characterization."

"If it makes you feel better, I detailed to the students all the ways in which the filmmakers should fear for their lives after that scene. A few of them had to leave the classroom afterwards. I think most of them are going to be having nightmares for a while." Actually, most of them seemed to think the real Morrigan sounded like the coolest person ever, but Pippa didn't mention it. She didn't think Morrigan would appreciate their admiration as much as their terror.

There was a brief moment of silence over the phone, in which Morrigan seemed to be considering the issue and reaching the conclusion that she'd taken the wrong tack with Pippa.

"Well then," Morrigan said, placated, "no harm, no foul. What can I do for you?"

"This is going to be a bit of a random question," Pippa warned. There was a long-suffering sigh at the other end.

"Do you ask any other kind?"

"Is there any way Solas might have survived?"

"Ah, the movie made you nostalgic for the world being on the brink of destruction again?"

"No, this is... about something else. I want to know if there's any chance Solas survived, after the... thing. He did. With the Veil."

"None, in my opinion. If he'd left a body behind, I would gladly take a shovel and reassure you, Inquisitor--," just a hint of mocking on the title, "--but as it stands, there was nothing left of him to survive. You've nothing to worry from him, I guarantee this to you. He lives on solely in your lectures."

"And in animation."

"Yes. Well. 'T'would be better if he were forsaken to history, but I am told there are things to learn even from its most idiotic chapters."

"Oh, how sweet of you, I'll tell him you still care."

She made her farewells and hung up afterwards, not at all satisfied by the conversation.

 

* * *

 

Falon was not in class that day, but Pippa made a mental note to request his phone number the next time she saw him. 

After leaving the University, Pippa decided to take a detour on the way home. This required her taking a mass transit eluvian, which of course required waiting in line to buy a ticket. There were barely two people in front of her, but she still grumbled to herself, impatient and thinking that after saving the world a handful of times she could have at least gotten lifetime public transportation access in return.

She always hated passing through an eluvian, some deep instinct bracing her for a wave of nausea even though newer models had eliminated that particular side effect on its users. Once inside the station--formerly called a crossroads, but apparently that name was not appeasing enough to the techno-industrial complex, or whoever re-named these things--she broke away from the crowd to examine the map in one of the waiting areas.

She took a meandering path over dull gray catwalks with functional iron handrails for safety, an unbelievably dull and ugly station by Val Royeaux standards, and stepped through a far-flung eluvian into a much worse part of town.

The graffiti overtook everything in this neighborhood, both in paint and in glyphs--something Pippa noticed because the lampposts were the cheap veilfire ones. The people here were less rushed, however. They were a rough crowd, to be sure, eying Pippa and her high quality jacket with suspicion, but they all seemed to be acquainted with each other, sharing brief nods and muttered greetings in passing.

Cole lived not far off, in an apartment building that was inching its way towards dilapidated a little bit every year. Pippa made her way up a stairwell that was tagged, dirty and unlit, and because she'd lit up her prosthetic hand with veilfire to see in the dark, she got impressions from inexpertly-drawn glyphs, snatches of almost-thoughts that didn't quite pull together into a tangible feeling. Kids practicing, probably, before they could find a wall to deface properly.

When she reached Cole's door and knocked, she didn't fully expect an answer. She hadn't called first, and Cole might very well have been at work.

The door opened, however, and Pippa was faced with a wide, muscular chest. She looked up to see the vashoth peering down at her, just as surprised.

"Hello, Addis," she said. "Is Cole home?"

Addis Adaar blinked and shuffled backwards awkwardly, gesturing for her to come in.

"He should be on his way home from the hospital right now, unless he gets sidetracked," Addis said. "You know how he is. Care to wait?"

"I'd love to," Pippa said, and breezed right in.

The apartment was the same as she remembered from previous visits, a small one-bedroom affair, cozy and cluttered with both Addis and Cole's things.

Pippa sat down on one end of the battered couch, her coat removed and slung over the arm rest, and Addis gingerly sat down on the other end, as if he was the guest in this house and needed to mind his horns.

The television in front of them was on a music channel, and an elven woman with a flower crown was belting out a Dalish folk song while standing forlornly in the middle of a forest. The shot then changed to her sitting forlornly in the shadow of a broken statue, and then walking down a set of old worn down stone steps in the same forest. The song was reaching its climax, requiring the singer to look extra forlorn in order to match the sad lyrics.

Pippa was fairly sure she had one of the artist's albums back home. It was good moping music.

"So, how have things been?" Addis asked, making an admirable effort to seem casual.

"Annoying and insufferable," she replied in a chipper. "And how have things been for you?"

"Uh, better than yours apparently," Addis said. "Is there any way I can help?"

Pippa tore her gaze away from the TV to smile at Addis.

"Cole's been rubbing off on you?" she asked. Addis chuckled a bit, and then Pippa continued while waggling her eyebrows, "In more ways than one?"

Addis nearly choked in shock.

"Miss Trevelyan!" he yelled, a blush creeping up his neck and tinging his chalky skin pink.

"Oh, for the last time, it's Pippa," she said. "I just made you _turn colors,_ Addis, I think we're at that point."

"That seems a bit, well... Maybe I could just call you Philipa?"

Pippa made a face.

"No, ew. Rather you went back to Miss Trevelyan, in that case."

Pippa returned her attention to the screen. Now three humans and a vashoth in leather were assaulting electric guitars. She definitely didn't have _their_ album.

But then, as she was sitting there being very judgmental of that band's fashion sense, a question occurred to her. Mainly why Addis would ask to call her Philipa, when nobody had brought that name up in years.

Her gaze slid from the screen to Addis.

"You saw the movie, didn't you?" she asked as realization dawned on her. That was where it had been slung around, especially at the beginning, all so at some point during the contrived romance with Cullen, her cartoon counterpart would ask him to call her Pippa.

Addis looked even more embarrassed now than at her off-color joke earlier.

"Oh, Addis," she softened her voice, "I hope you at least didn't pay money to see that abomination."

"Cole said you wouldn't like if I did. I, uh... is it that bad, really? It's just a silly movie."

She rubbed a hand over her face, and muffled a groan into her palm.

"I mean, it can't be that bad, if you showed it in class."

She looked at Addis through her fingers, before lowering her hand slowly.

"I showed it in class because I teach about spotting false depictions of historical events, and that movie was a veritable smorgasbord of bullshit and outright fabrication."

Addis looked cowed.

"Oh..." was his response. "Well... shit."

"Exactly," Pippa agreed.

"People on the Internet are very angry at you."

" _Exactly_."

"So what are you going to do?"

Pippa would have laughed bitterly at that point, but she was sick of bitterness.

"What do you think I should do?" she asked.

Addis' eyes lit up at being asked. Not a lot of people wanted to hear his opinion, Pippa suspected.

"You should debunk the movie," he said. "Make one of those reviews, you know? Where people mock movies. Except you'd also be educating them."

"Ah, and if I had editing skills, time to write a script and a review copy of the movie, I certainly would, but I'm afraid by the time I acquired all three of those, this whole thing will have mostly blown over and I will have already gone down in history as whole-heartedly approving of this disaster."

Addis wilted slightly, so Pippa reached over and patted his shoulder.

"But you're not completely wrong," she said. "The idea merely needs... adapting."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those curious about how she looks in this AU, there's art of [Professor Trevelyan.](http://azzandra.tumblr.com/post/129789772991/modern-thedas-au-pippa-trevelyan-as-she-appears)


	5. Putting a Cap to It

Falon's steps slowed as he neared the vending machine and was faced with Pippa casually leaning against it.

"You did not wait for me here all day, I hope," he said.

"Didn't have to do it all day," Pippa replied, a bit insulted. "Just between class periods."

"Surely you had better things to do," he said.

"If I had your number, perhaps I could have given you a call in advance and informed you that in fact I do _not_ have better things to do."

Falon stared at her for a long time, before removing his phone from his jacket.

"And if you'd called," he said, "I would have told you that in that case I would be happy to make plans together for today."

Pippa grinned, and removed something from her pocket.

"By the way, were you aware of this event?" she asked, extending a crumpled flier towards him.

Falon cast a glance at it, before looking up again. He recognized the flier, of course. He'd _given_ her that flier, or at least an identical one.

"As I understand, the exhibit is seeing less traffic now," he replied neutrally. 

"Wonderful," Pippa replied. "In that case, a museum visit sounds like the perfect way to while away the afternoon."

He seemed to hesitate for a second.

"What?" she asked.

"No, nothing," he shrugged minutely. "A passing concern, but I am sure it is unfounded."

"I'm not going to do anything to the museum."

"I did not claim you would."

"You just thought it," she surmised.

"I confess to nothing," Falon replied, "least of all mental images of you climbing into a glass case while in the midsts of a nervous breakdown."

Pippa actually guffawed at that, in a very loud and unladylike manner that had a group of passing students glance at her.

She gave Falon's shoulder a pat--thought by his wince it was probably more of a smack.

"We're going to have fun, you and I," she said, rather ominously.

 

* * *

 

Pippa's attempt at stealth, it appeared, involved a knit wool hat stuffed low on her head. Falon kept stealing glances at it from the corner of his eye.

It couldn't possibly be enough to render her unrecognizable, he thought, especially as they were passing a large poster with her likeness on it.

But the poster had an imposing drawing of the Herald and Inquisitor in full armor, looking grim and resolute as she extended a glowing hand, and even standing beside it, the similarity between it and the woman in the comfortable hat could be hard to detect. Whoever had depicted her in the poster had chosen to exaggerate the strength of her jaw, and had also given her an uncharacteristic scowl. Pippa did not scowl like that, especially not while posing randomly with her hand in the air, and he was not simply thinking this because that hand was now missing from her.

There were also not very many people at that time of day and week, and so he was not especially surprised to see her escape notice. 

Relaxed, she hooked her arm with his, and they ambled across the museum floor together in silence until they reached the first room.

It covered the early days of the Inquisition. The museum had even recovered the writ from Divine Justinia, the now delicate pages of the large tome kept under special lamps so the paper would not suffer further damage.

They moved on to other artifacts of the era. A few armors, on lifelike wax figures of former Inquisition members. A good likeness of Cassandra brandished her original shield, in addition to a recreation of an old set of armor she'd worn once. 

Pippa read the explanatory plaque with a vague smile, and he found himself wondering what she was thinking of.

"Is this jogging any memories?" he found himself asking, his voice almost lost to the hush of the museum.

"No," Pippa replied, then frowned slightly. "Not... as such. Maybe feelings, but I don't know if they're my feelings now or my feelings then."

"She was your friend," he said. "That relationship left its mark upon you. Your feelings about her now are not any less valid than your feelings then."

Pippa turned her head very slowly and looked at him strangely. He couldn't guess what she was thinking or what impact his words had had, so he gestured down the hall.

They walked between points of interest, reading plaques and commenting in low murmurs about the information they provided, about the priorities of historians and the limited knowledge they worked from.

"They must curse me on a daily basis that I don't remember more," she said, grinning, "but whenever I have some small nugget for them, they slobber like Mabari with a steak in their line of sight."

"It must be amusing for you."

"I wonder if it is, at times."

They stopped before a glass case apart from the others, dominating the center of the room. Inside was one of Pippa's own sets of armor, one she had favored and worn throughout most of her tenure as Inquisitor.

"Sometimes I wonder if this is even remotely a more accurate vision of history than the animated one," she said, and raised a hand to gesture to the armor. "That used to be orange."

She meant the sash and the lining of the coat. They were dragon webbing, and thus had once been an extremely bright orange. 

"The things you remember," Falon said, letting out a long breath.

"I wouldn't forget orange," Pippa laughed. "And at the very least, I know myself enough to be sure that I wouldn't get caught dead in _that_."

Time had faded the orange dragon webbing to merely a dusky golden color, more subdued and dignified. The rest of the armor, made of dragon scales, had been white, but had been restored by the museum so well that it was even more brightly white than it had been while in use. No mud or dirt was allowed to touch it anymore. The armor was now a gleaming white and gold, like something a chevalier from story books would wear.

"You do not like the effect," he remarked.

"It makes for a better story, I suppose," she said. "I think if I were dead, I'd be more accepting of people making up stories about me. But I'm not. I have to live with their ridiculous misconceptions."

Falon shifted their linked arms slightly, and placed his hand over where her hand laid against his arm.

"Do you regret not being dead?" he asked, his voice far away.

"I don't regret living," Pippa replied. "Other than it being occasionally inconvenient, I don't even dislike it. It's the rest of the world that needs to get their act together."

"And you are just the person to make them?" he asked.

"Oh, no. No, no," Pippa shook her head and let out a dry bark of laughter. "I did my part. I did more than I even signed up for. There's still a world around to bedevil me, isn't there? No. I'm tired. I don't want to fight anymore."

Her voice trailed off on the last words, as she looked up at the armor before her. Or perhaps her own reflection in the glass. The silence extended for a long time before she spoke again.

"Though I admit, I do still have questions," she said. "About a lot of things."

Falon hummed in agreement.

"I do as well," he admitted. "I find the pursuit of answers worthy in and of itself."

"Well, in the spirit of a worthy pursuit, mind if I ask you something?"

"No," he said. "Please do."

"Alright. Why Falon?"

"Why not?"

"Oh, don't tempt me to answer that question, because the first thing I'd tell you is that it's a dorky choice for a name," Pippa retorted. "Why 'Falon'? Why that particular name, Solas?"

He fell silent, looking off and to the side. Pippa didn't move away from him, merely waited, equally silent.

"So you did know," he said low.

"'Know' is a bit of a strong word, maybe," she replied. "I spent hundreds of years convinced you were dead. I don't remember what exactly you did to yourself when you replaced the Veil, but I do still dream about it sometimes, like the afterimage is seared into my mind, and Maker knows that it didn't look survivable by any measure. But then I thought... ah, I don't know. I _thought_. I didn't _know_. And every time you opened your mouth, you made my memory itch, like you were in there somewhere. After all the crazy bullshit that happened, sure. You survived. Why not."

She stopped talking and looked at him from the corner of her eye. Solas nodded slowly.

"I did die, for what it's worth," he said in the end. "It certainly is the only way to describe the experience. But..."

"It didn't take," Pippa surmised.

Solas chuckled softly.

"It is strange, but in those days when I became aware of myself again, I could not remember why I would have wanted to die in the first place. Living provides its own impetus for continuing to live. But I did remember, eventually. I did... have to confront the memories when they came back."

"And having those memories, we come back again to my question. Why 'Falon'?"

"Because I wished to hear you call me 'friend' once more," he admitted.

Pippa turned very slowly towards Solas, with a critical look on her face.

"Maker, Solas, that's the most tooth-rotting syrupy thing I've ever experienced, and I'm including that froofy drink you inflicted on me at Amero's," she said, before breaking into a wide grin.

Solas remained frozen in place for a few seconds more, tense as he processed the words, before he relaxed again and grinned back at her.

"Your criticism has been noted," he replied. 

Then, a bit nonsensically, they both burst into laughter at the same time, tension seeping out of their bodies as they leaned against each other.

 

* * *

 

Addis fiddled with the camera after the set it up. Pippa was looking down at the paper in her hand.

"Will you be reading off the paper?" he asked. "Only, you should be looking at the camera, so maybe I should hold it up for you by the lens?"

"It's fine, Addis, I won't be reading," she said. "I hold this lecture every semester, I know how it goes."

"You're giving a lecture?" he asked, frowning. "I thought this was going to be about the movie."

"Addis, it's not going to be the last movie they make about me," Pippa replied, and after a moment's pause added, "That sounded incredibly conceited out loud, but still. It probably really won't be. I don't want to go through this whole thing again next time. So."

"So," Addis echoed.

"When I say I'm giving a lecture, I mean it more in the tongue-lashing sense."

"Oh!" Addis's eyes widened. "So you're going to scold them for believing everything they see on a screen."

"Well, since I'll be on a screen when they watch it, obviously I'm banking on them believing _some_ things they see," Pippa replied dryly.

Addis gave an embarrassed laugh, and turned his attention back to the camera, adjusting settings.

"But yes," Pippa said. "I am going to shame them into questioning everything, if that's what it takes."

 

* * *

 

Smoke wafted through the air and Pippa exhaled slowly, and then, with a twitch of magic, it disappeared.

Solas had an incongruously serious expression as he sipped his hot chocolate and watched the cartoon on the laptop screen.

"Their animation budget must have been atrociously small," he commented lightly, as he watched the jagged motions of the characters. All their eyes looked just very slightly off, giving the entire production a slightly eerie, uncanny-valley feel.

Pippa chuckled around her cigarette.

"I actually can't wait until they get to the songs," Pippa said. "If the animation is this bad, we must be in for a real treat on the musical side."

Solas chuckled and sipped his hot chocolate again. The _Herald_ straight-to-DVD Wintersend special was already, in his opinion, quite a treat, if one judged solely on shoddiness. Haskel Productions had achieved new standards of failure with this transparent money-grab, to the point that Solas was beginning to understand the appeal of watching something contemptibly bad.

"Does it upset you?" Solas asked. "That even after all your turmoil the first time around, they would produce this dreck?"

"Strangely, it bothers me far less," Pippa replied. "It was one thing to have to tolerate some very pretty looking and decent sounding idiocy, because it always felt like they could have put the same effort into researching the history. This? This is honest. It accurately reflects their level of effort. I heartily approve."

Her on-screen counterpart took that moment to deliver an incredibly anachronistic speech about Wintersend's meaning. Solas turned to look at Pippa, who was staring at the screen with a vexed expression.

"Well, maybe I don't... approve, exactly," she said faintly. "Maker, this is bad."

"Yes," Solas said. "It was why you insisted on us watching, as I recall."

"Yes, but it's... it's very... _Maker_ , this _is_ bad."

"Yes."

A few more minutes passed. Solas sipped his drink. Pippa's cigarette burned, and she put it out in the ashtray. A song started.

"I'm putting on something else," Pippa declared halfway through the song.

"Really?" Solas raised his eyebrow in surprise. "But I believe I am growing fond of this film."

Pippa paused the movie and gave Solas a dark look.

"Don't ever let me watch this shit again," she said.

"I will remember that," he chuckled, as she switched over to an episode of a TV show they both enjoyed.

In a few hundred years, Pippa knew she would no longer remember watching this horrible film. But Solas would, probably, and he would maybe remember the way they spent this Wintersend together, and that thought was, oddly, much more warming than some schmoopy holiday special.

She settled back on the sofa, gathering up her feet and cramming them against Solas's thigh for warmth.

It hadn't been a terrible year after all, she decided.


End file.
